Maybe
by Whisperwill
Summary: Three masters, three pupils. All is not as it seems, and love needn't always be declared in order to be genuine.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own the unparalleled _Naruto_. I am not making money off this fanfiction story.**

**A/N: Original completion date: approx. 5/6/10. I apologize if the chapters are a little short; I just wanted to divide the scenes up adequately. Review once you read, won't you?**

**Rated K+ for ninja fights.**

**Maybe**

Yes, it was that time of day again—the time that Naruto got into trouble. Sometimes it was before breakfast, sometimes after lights-out, sometimes while hanging upside-down, sometimes while hanging his head. Although, this had to be the only time he got chewed out while lying flat on his back in a hospital bed.

"_UZUMAKI NARUTO!_" Iruka bellowed, storming into the room, livid with anger. "Do you have any brains at all?!"

"Aaaw, Master Iruka . . ." Naruto whined.

"Don't try to explain yourself out of this one, Naruto," Iruka told him. He perched on the bed's edge and poked his young charge in the chest. "Under _no_ circumstances are cadets to leave the village alone—and don't you dare pretend not to know that rule!" he shouted when Naruto opened his mouth to butt in. "You're just lucky I was there to protect you."

"I could've held them off myself," Naruto protested, sticking out his lower lip in a pout.

"Not in your wildest dreams!" Iruka contradicted him, irate. "And if I _ever_ catch you doing something so stupid again, I'll personally expel you from the Academy!" He stomped out again and leaned against the wall in the hallway. The nurse on duty shook her head in understanding.

"All boys can be idiots sometimes, Master Iruka," she said with a laugh. Iruka nodded and sighed.

"Yeah. Take good care of him for me, will you?"

"Of course," she assured him. She entered Naruto's room and examined the little cadet, checking his bandages, body temperature, and chakra level. Naruto was every medic ninja's dream: even after the beating he'd taken, he had already largely recovered. He bounced back from any injury with shocking rapidity. In fact, he could probably be released from the hospital within a few hours' time.

Naruto sulked and moped, burying his head in the pillow or turning to gaze despondently out the window. Perhaps he took Iruka's abuse harder than most people realized. The nurse shook her head again. Master Iruka could be harsh when he was in the middle of a lecture. But Naruto hadn't seen Iruka go white when he was first told that Naruto was missing. He had been unconscious when Iruka fought like a one-man cell to save him from Amegakure ninja that dropped from the skies like rain. He hadn't been around to see Iruka pacing for one and a half hours on the hospital lawn, waiting for him to wake up. Nor had he seen the relief wash over Master Iruka's face when he found out that Naruto would be all right.

Maybe Iruka cared more than Naruto would ever know.


	2. Chapter 2

~three years later~

"I thought I told you to stay down." Kakashi had his hand planted firmly over Sasuke's face, forcing him to remain flat on his back; as a result, the boy's reply was muffled and difficult to hear.

"I don't need protection." Sharingan eyes met sharingan eye as Sasuke glared at Kakashi and Kakashi calmly met his glare. But Kakashi didn't reply, choosing instead to rake the gaze of his two eyes at the trees overhead and the ground below. Once he was satisfied that the only enemy shinobi in the area were dead ones, he shut his scarred eye up under the _hitai-ate_ headband once more. Gesturing to Sakura to come closer, he shifted his weight so that Naruto, who was leaning heavily on his shoulder, could use Sakura for support instead. The team's maverick ninja was completely out of chakra, or at least, as low on chakra as it was possible to be before his life became endangered. His eyes were glazed and half-closed. In the fight against enemy ninja, Naruto, who had been either desperate to prove himself or desperate to make a fool out of himself, had unleashed a mob of doppelgangers, wasting all his chakra at once on an attack that didn't end up making a single hit for Cell 7. Of course, Naruto may have chosen to make that ridiculous gamble because Kakashi had been relying heavily on Sasuke during the battle. Their foes had specialized in deception and concealment, and to have a hope of seeing them, one needed to utilize the sharingan eye. So Kakashi had taken Sasuke to the forefront, leaving the other two to cover for them. Then, predictably, Sasuke had been viciously taken down—he was, after all, only a _genin_. Kakashi, absorbed in the battle, hadn't realized the extent of Sasuke's injury until the boy attempted a taijutsu move and screamed so loudly that the woods rang with the sound. Yet battles don't pause for the fallen, so Kakashi had left Sakura to guard Sasuke—who was infuriated at being forced to lie down while his comrades fought valiantly—and he took Naruto with him to bring the fight to an end, a feat which he managed to accomplish even after Naruto pulled his chakra-draining stunt.

Kakashi looked into Sakura's eyes. "I need you to take Naruto back to the village, Sakura," he said to her. "When you get there, send medics back. I'll stay behind to guard Sasuke."

"I don't need to be guarded!" Sasuke interjected angrily, but by now both of them had learned

to ignore him.

"Oh—" Sakura seemed distraught. "Master Kakashi, couldn't I stay behind instead?" she pleaded. Kakashi shook his head.

"You have to do this, Sakura. I need to stay in case more shinobi show up. Besides," he added wryly, "you're not stubborn enough to keep our Uchiha boy here in line." Sasuke virtually smoldered while Sakura nodded hesitantly. She slung Naruto's arm over her shoulders and bolstered him up.

"I'll go as fast as I can." She met Kakashi's eye earnestly with a silent plea: _Watch over him_. Kakashi gave her a swift nod, and she took off, leaping through the trees with Naruto in tow. Kakashi watched until they were out of sight. Then he turned to Sasuke, pulled out a kunai knife, and held it against the boy's throat.

"I've had as much as I can take from you," he growled. "You may not want to admit it, but your leg is literally shattered. If you put any weight on it, the bone fragments may sever crucial nerves, and you'll never be able to use the leg again. If that happens, you can forget about becoming a shinobi."

Sasuke looked genuinely shocked. "You're serious?" he asked softly.

"Yes. Now, it'll be awhile before the medics can get here. Remain as still as you can. And if you make a move to get up, I'll stop you any way I have to." He waved the knife meaningfully before sheathing it. His worries were ill-founded, however; after hearing Kakashi's analysis of the situation, Sasuke went perfectly still, his eyes shut, his breathing carefully measured, almost as though he were meditating. For his part, Kakashi stood up and tensed his body, ready to fight any new enemies that might present themselves, all senses on alert. For the next three hours, neither man nor boy moved.

When the sun began to set, Sasuke's stomach rumbled. Neither of them had eaten yet today, having gotten caught up in the mission. Kakashi took a break from sentinel duty and squatted on the ground to kindle a fire. He threw their rations haphazardly into two bowls to make a mishmash of a meal. After eating his own share—a soupy but passable rice-meat porridge—he carried the other bowl over to Sasuke, who reached up to take it. Kakashi instantly pinned his hand back against the grass.

"I told you not to move, remember?"

Sasuke was bewildered. "Then how am I supposed to eat?" he asked. Kakashi broke the news bluntly.

"I'm going to feed it to you." Unsurprisingly, Sasuke didn't look as though he liked the sound of that at all.

"Can't you just give me a military rations pellet?" he protested.

"Nope. Those pellets are a temporary supplement to increase strength in battle conditions. They're not intended to be a replacement for real food." He gave Sasuke what looked like a smile from behind his facial mask. "So open up."

Sasuke had never looked more ornery than he did at that moment as he snapped his lips together impertinently, daring his sensei to proceed. Kakashi blew out his breath in a sigh and rummaged in the supply pack attached to his waist. From it he pulled a long, flexible tube and dangled it before his student. "Do you know what this is?" Sasuke's answer was only a sullen glare. "This is a standard-issue torture device only given out to shinobi who rank _jonin_ or above. It's used to get information out of stubborn prisoners, or, less commonly, as a medical means to provide sustenance to a patient who can't take food orally. It's called a force-feeding tube." He paused to let Sasuke view the menacing instrument with a new respect. "Now, do I use this tube to make sure my top-rated rookie gets his meal?" He slipped it back into his pack and held up a pair of chopsticks with the other hand. "Or will you be a good boy and eat it the normal way? Your choice." Sasuke looked furious at being forced into submission, but he unclenched his jaw and finally opened his mouth for Kakashi.

An outsider would never have guessed that the shinobi who took such care to tip the bowl and scoop the food into his charge's mouth without spilling a bit, who held his hand preventively against the boy's abdomen to ensure that he didn't move at all, was actually Kakashi of the Sharingan Eye, the legendary ninja with no weaknesses, and no ties to anyone.

Maybe Kakashi cared more than he ever let on.


End file.
